Is anyone planning to watch the Americas Cup in NYC Harbor / Hudson River May 7th and 8th? I was thinking about heading down there but I am waiting for more info on where we can watch as a spectator boat.

I'm not really into sailing but this event looks pretty cool. Looks like they will be in Chicago in June as well.

I'm in Chicago and am hoping to catch some of the America's Cup trials here.

I'm trying to find out were on the lakefront they are going to be. I'm on the far north side of Chicago and have a 34th floor condo that overlooks the lake. It would be too convenient to watch from that perch, right?

sniksich wrote:I'm in Chicago and am hoping to catch some of the America's Cup trials here.

I'm trying to find out were on the lakefront they are going to be. I'm on the far north side of Chicago and have a 34th floor condo that overlooks the lake. It would be too convenient to watch from that perch, right?

Scott

I don't know the Chicago area but this is from the website along with a bunch of other info.

Racing will be focused around Navy Pier with a USCG Safety Zone set up inside the outer break wall transforming the Chicago lakefront into the America’s Cup race course. While the best seats in the house will be at Navy Pier and the general boating public will be able to watch the racing from their boats, the BOATERS PASS entitles you to exclusive perks throughout the entire weekend.

It looks like for the Chicago race they have "spectator boat" passes and some sort of official setup/provisions if you want to watch from your own boat. There does not seem to be anything like that for the Hudson River in NY. I expect some sort of info to be forthcoming, but as of now I can find any details for the NY race if one wants to watch on the water.

Well I'm heading down the Hudson to NYC tomorrow to watch the Americas Cup race. Its about a 90 minute ride for me to get there. This should be real interesting in terms of the number of other boats and race related activity on the water. If I'm able to snap any cool pics I will upload them here.

Sat the wind I think will be kind of light. Sunday however it could be blowing hard which should make for some good racing.

Okay that was very interesting. Almost no wind which was not good for a sailboat race but there was a 3 knot current and the spectator boats were not allowed to anchor. This makes for about two hours we had to hold position in a fast moving current with tons of other boats around and just feet to the sides of us. While the current was lighter I mostly used the joystick but as it picked up I was able to keep the boat in gear between 800-1100 rpm and maintain position using the wheel.

There were the lots of other boats on the river, every marine , coast guard ,AC boat, NYPD, NYFD you could think off. Not to mention at least 6 low flying helochopters buzzing around. AC did manage to pull off one race late in the day which was pretty cool. Today the winds are about 20mph with a small craft advisory in effect. I am not able to go but even if I could I don't think I would attempt those conditions.

Was tough to see from the water in Chicago unless you got there really early. There were stands set up on Navy Pier but it was about 95 on Saturday. I got a couple of photos while waiting to go in and out of the locks to get to the river. Enjoy!